"Thus
let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.
let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.
Byron
, and his Works in
connection with Electric Telegraphy in 1816_, by J. Sime, 1893. But the
"Telegraph" to which Byron refers was, probably, the semaphore (from
London to Portsmouth), which, according to [Sir] John Barrow, the
Secretary of the Admiralty, rendered "telegraphs of any kind now wholly
unnecessary" (_vide ibid. _, p. 10). ]
[528] {506}[Compare, for similarity of sound--
"It plunged and tacked and veered. "
_Ancient Mariner_, pt. iii. line 156. ]
[ha]
----_No land was ever overflowed_
_By locusts as the Heaven appeared by these_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hb] _And many-languaged cries were like wild geese_. --[Erased. ]
[529] [Compare--
"Wherefore with thee
Came not all Hell broke loose? "
_Paradise Lost_, iv. 917, 918. ]
[hc] _Though the first Hackney will_----. --[MS. ]
[hd] {507}_Ready to swear the cause of all their pain_. --[Erased. ]
[530] [In the game of ombre the ace of spades, _spadille_, ranks as the
best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best
trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's _Rape of the Lock_,
in. 47-64. )]
[531] {508}["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb? ' cried the multifaced Demon in
anger. "
_Vision of Judgement_, v. ]
[532]
["Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day. "
_Ibid. _, v.
In Hogarth's caricature (the original pen-and-ink sketch is in the
"Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to _Catalogue_, 1886)
Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint. " The costume--long
coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings--is
not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a
leer and a sneer. Walpole (_Letters_, 1858, vii. 274) describes another
portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking--no,
squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil
acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton. "]
[533] {509}[For the "Coan" skirts of the First Empire, see the fashion
plates and Gillray's and Rowlandson's caricatures _passim_. ]
[he] _It shall be me they'll find the trustiest patriot_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hf] _Said Wilkes I've done as much before_. --[MS. erased. ]
[534] {510}[On his third return to Parliament for Middlesex, October 8,
1774, Wilkes took his seat (December 2) without opposition. In the
following February, and on subsequent occasions, he endeavoured to
induce the House to rescind the resolutions passed January 19, 1764,
under which he had been expelled from Parliament, and named as
blasphemous, obscene, etc. Finally, May, 1782, he obtained a substantial
majority on a division, and the obnoxious resolutions were ordered to be
expunged from the journals of the House. ]
[535] [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton,
a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in
the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;"
but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become
surety for bail. He feared that such a step might "come under the
denomination of an insult on the Crown. " A writ of _Habeas Corpus_ (see
line 8) was applied for by Lord Temple and others, and, May 6, Wilkes
was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, on the ground of privilege.
Three years later (November 1, 1766), on his return from Italy, Wilkes
sought to obtain Grafton's protection and interest; but the duke, though
he consulted Chatham, and laid Wilkes's letter before the King, decided
to "take no notice" of this second appeal. In his _Autobiography_
Grafton is careful to define "the extent of his knowledge" of Mr.
Wilkes, and to explain that he was not "one of his intimates"--a
_caveat_ which warrants the statement of Junius that "as for Mr. Wilkes,
it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should
have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former
friendship with him. Your gracious Master understands your character;
and makes you a persecutor because you have been a friend" ("Letter
(xii. ) to the Duke of Grafton," May 30, 1769). --_Memoirs of Augustus
Henry, Third Duke of Grafton_, by Sir W. Anson, Bart. , D. C. L. , 1898, pp.
190-197. ]
[536] {511}[In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, and in the following
spring it fell to his lot to present to the King a remonstrance from the
Livery against the continuance of the war with America. Walpole (April
17, 1775, Letters, 1803, vi. 257) says that "he used his triumph with
moderation--in modern language with good breeding. " The King is said to
have been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In his old age (1790) he
voted against the Whigs. A pasquinade, written by Sheridan, Tickell, and
Lord John Townshend, anticipated the devil's insinuations--
"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,
Thou greatest of bilks,
How changed are the notes you now sing!
Your famed 'Forty-five'
Is prerogative,
And your blasphemy 'God save the King'!
Johnny Wilkes,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King '! "
_Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox_, by W. F. Rae, 1874, pp. 132, 133. ]
[hg] _Where Beelzebub upon duty_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[537] ["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack upon the King, two Acts were
introduced [the "Treason" and "Sedition Bills," November 6, November 10,
1795], called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, for better securing the
King's person "(_Diary of H. C. Robinson_, 1869, i. 32). "'The first of
these bills [_The Plot Discovered, etc. _, by S. T. Coleridge, November
28, 1795, _Essays on his own Times_, 1850, i. 56] is an attempt to
assassinate the liberty of the press; the second to smother the liberty
of speech. " The "Devil" feared that Wilkes had been "gagged" for good
and all.
[538] {512}
["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,
Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turned his face from the Monarch,
Iron-bound as it was . . . so insupportably dreadful
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured. "
_Vision of Judgement_, v. i]
[hh] _Or in the human cholic_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[hi] _Which looked as 'twere a phantom even on earth_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hj] _Now it seemed little, now a little bigger_. --[MS. erased. ]
[539] {513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than
fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord
George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord
Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius,
Byron wrote, in his _Journal_ of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what
to think. Why should Junius be yet dead? . . . . the man must be alive, and
will never die without the disclosure" (_Letters_, 1893, ii. 334); but
an article (by Brougham) in the _Edinburgh Review_, vol. xxix. p. 94, on
_The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character
established_ (see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost
persuaded him that "Francis is Junius. " (For a _resume_ of the arguments
in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie
Stephen's article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_, art. "Francis. " See,
too, _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, by W. E. H. Lecky,
1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against
this theory, see _Athenaeum_, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is
still being debated. See _The Francis Letters_, with a note on the
Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901. )]
[hk] _A doctor, a man-midwife_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[hl] {514}_Till curiosity became a task_. --[MS. erased. ]
[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the
Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio
Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua. Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the
instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Marechal Catinat, May 2, 1679,
and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September
18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve
the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice
in the _Quart. Rev_. , June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take
the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article
_L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir_, in the _Revue Historique_, by M.
Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom. 56, pp. 253-303. )]
[541] [See _The Rivals_, act iv. sc. II]
[hm] _It is that he_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[542] {515}[The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial morass, covered
with dense forests of mangrove. "Along the whole coast . . . there opens
into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have
scarcely been able to number. "]
[543] [The title-page runs thus: "_Letters of Junius, Stat Nominis
Umbra_. " _That_, and nothing more! On the title-page of his copy, across
the motto, S. T. Coleridge wrote this sentence, "As he never dropped the
mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of the
assassin. "--_Miscellanies_, etc. , by S. T. Coleridge, ed. T. Asle, 1885,
p. 341. ]
[hn]
_My charge is upon record and will last_
_Longer than will his lamentation_. --[MS. erased. ]
[544] {516}[John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), as an opponent of the American
War, and as a promoter of the Corresponding Society, etc. ; and Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790), as the champion of American Independence, would
have been cited as witnesses against George III. ]
[545] [In the _Diable Boiteux_ (1707) of Le Sage, Don Cleofas, clinging
to the cloak of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the summit of
San Salvador. Compare--
"Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift
Be realiz'd at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift,
To place it on St. Mary's spire. "
_Granta, a Medley_, stanza 1. , _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 56, note 2. ]
[546] ["But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust,
was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado. "--_Speech of
William Smith, M. P. , in the House of Commons_, March 14, 1817. (See,
too, for the use of the word "renegado," _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii.
488, note i. )]
[547] [For the "weight" of Southey's quartos, compare Byron's note (1)
to _Hints from Horace_, line 657, and a variant of lines 753-756.
"Thus
let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.
435, 443). ]
[ho] {517}_And drawing nigh I caught him at a libel_. --[MS. erased. ]
[548] [Compare--
"But for the children of the 'Mighty Mother's,'
The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,
I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'
Smug coterie, and literary lady. "
_Beppo_, stanza lxxvi. lines 5-8, _vide ante_, p. 183. ]
[hp]
_And scrawls as though he were head clerk to the "Fates,"_
_And this I think is quite enough for one_. --[Erased. ]
[549] {518}[Compare--
"One leaf from Southey's laurels may explode
All his combustibles,
'An ass, by God! '"
_A Satire on Satirists, etc. _, by W. S. Landor, 1836, p. 22. ]
[550] ["There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and
Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers. "--Hazlitt's _My
First Acquaintance with Poets_; _The Liberal_, 1823, ii. 23, 46. ]
[551] [Compare the attitude of Minos to the "poet" in Fielding's
_Journey from This World to the Next_: "The poet answered, he believed
if Minos had read his works he would set a higher value on them. [The
poet had begged for admittance to Elysium on the score of his 'dramatic
works. ' Minos dismissed the plea, but relented on being informed that he
had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend. ] He was
then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed him forward, and turning his
back to him, applied himself to the next passengers. "--_Novelist's
Magazine_, 1783, vol. xii. cap. vii. p. 17. ]
[552]
[" . . . Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae. "
Horace, _Ars Poetica_, lines 372, 373. ]
[553] {519}[For the King's habit of duplicating his phrases, compare--
"Whitbread, is't true? I hear, I hear
You're of an ancient family renowned.
What? what? I'm told that you're a limb
Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym:
What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?
Son of a Roundhead are you? hae? hae? hae?
* * * * *
Thirtieth of January don't you _feed_?
Yes, yes, you eat Calf's head, you eat Calf's head. "
_Instructions to a Celebrated Laureat_, Peter Pindar's
_Works_, 1812, i. 493. ]
[554] [For Henry James Pye (1745-1813), see _English Bards, etc. _, line
102, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 305, note 1. ]
[hq] {520} ----_an ill-looking knave_. --[MS. erased. ]
[555] ["Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey--the
best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head
and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly
a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that,
and--_there_ is his eulogy. "--Letter to Moore, September 27, 1813,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 266.
"I have not seen the _Liberal_," wrote Southey to Wynn, October 26,
1822, "but a Leeds paper has been sent me . . . including among its
extracts the description and behaviour of a certain 'varlet. ' He has not
offended me in the way that the pious painter exasperated the Devil"
(i. e. by painting him "more ugly than ever:" see Southey's Ballad of the
_Pious Painter_, _Works_, 1838, vi. 64). ]
[hr] {521}_He therefore was content to cite a few_. --[MS. erased. ]
[556] [Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" was published in the _Annual
Anthology_ of 1800, pp. 34-37. It is quoted at length, as a republican
and seditious poem, in the _Preface_ to an edition of _Wat Tyler_,
published by W. Hone in 1817; and it is also included in an "Appendix"
entitled _The Stripling Bard, or the Apostate Laureate_, affixed to
another edition issued in the same year by John Fairburn. The purport
and _motif_ of these excellent rhymes is non-patriotic if not
Jacobinical, but, for some reason, the poem has been considered
improving for the young, and is included in many "Poetry Books" for
schools. _The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo_ was published in 1816, not
long before the resuscitation of _Wat Tyler_. ]
[557] [_Vide ante_, p. 482. ]
[558] ["He has written _Wat Tyler_, and taken the office of poet
laureate--he has, in the _Life of Henry Kirke White_ (see Byron's note
_infra_), denominated reviewing 'the ungentle craft,' and has become a
reviewer--he was one of the projectors of a scheme called
'pantisocracy,' for having all things, including women, in common
(_query_ common women? ). "--_Some Observations upon an Article in
Blackwood's Magazine_ (No. xxix. , August, 1819), _Letters_, 1900
[Appendix IX. ], iv. 483. The invention or, possibly, disinterment of
this calumny was no doubt a counterblast on Byron's part to the supposed
charge of a "league of incest" (at Diodati, in 1816), which he
maintained had been disseminated by Coleridge on the authority of
Southey (_vide ante_, p. 475). It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that
before Pantisocracy was imagined or devised, one of the future
pantisocrats, Robert Lovell, was married to Mary Fricker; that Robert
Southey was engaged to be married to her sister Edith; and that, as a
result of the birth and evolution of the scheme, Coleridge became
engaged to be married to a third sister, Sarah, hitherto loverless, in
order that "every Jack should have his Jill," and the world begin anew
in a second Eden across the seas. All things were to be held in common,
in order that each man might hold his wife in particular. ]
[559] {522}_Remains of Henry Kirke White_ [1808, i. 23]
[560] [Southey's _Life of Wesley, and Rise and Progress of Methodism_,
in two volumes octavo, was published in 1820. In a "Memento" written in
a blank leaf of the first volume, Coleridge expressed his desire that
his copy should be given to Southey as a bequest. "One or other volume,"
he writes, "was more often in my hands than any other in my ragged
book-regiment . . . How many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this
Life of Wesley! "--Third ed. 1846, i. xv. ]
[561] [In his reply to the Preface to Southey's _Vision of Judgement_,
Byron attacked the Laureate as "this arrogant scribbler of all works. "]
[hs] _Is not unlike it, and is_----. --[MS. ]
[562] {523}King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that
"had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have
spared the Maker some absurdities. [Alphonso X. , King of Castile
(1221-1284), surnamed the Wise and the Astronomer, "gave no small
encouragement to the Jewish rabbis. " Under his patronage Judah de Toledo
translated the works of Avicenna, and improved them by a new division of
the stars. Moreover, "he sent for about 50 learned men from Gascony,
Paris, and other places, to translate the tables of Ptolemy, and to
compile a more correct set of them (i. e. the famous _Tabulae Alphonsinae_)
. . . The king himself presided over the assembly. "--_Mod. Univ. Hist. _,
xiii. 304, 305, note(U).
Alfonso has left behind him the reputation of a Castilian
Hamlet--"infinite in faculty," but "unpregnant of his cause. " "He was
more fit," says Mariana (_Hist. _, lib. xiii. c. 20), "for letters than
for the government of his subjects; he studied the heavens and watched
the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom. " Nevertheless his
works do follow him. "He is to be remembered for his poetry
(_'Cantigas'_, chants in honour of the Virgin, and _'Tesoro'_ a treatise
on the philosopher's stone), for his astronomical tables, which all the
progress of science have not deprived of their value, and for his great
work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both
hemispheres. "--_Hist. of Spanish Literature_, by G. Ticknor, 1888, i. 7.
Byron got the quip about Alfonso and "the absurdities of creation" from
Bayle (_Dict_. , 1735, art. "Castile"), who devotes a long note (H) to a
somewhat mischievous apology for the king's apparent profanity. Bayle's
immediate authority is Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his _Entretiens sur
la Pluralite des Mondes_, 1686, p. 38, "L'embaras de tous ces cercles
estoit si grand, que dans un temps ou l'on ne connoissoit encore rien de
meilleur, un roy d'Aragon (_sic_) grand mathematicien mais apparemment
peu devot, disoit que si Dieu l'eust appelle a son conseil quand il fit
le Monde, il luy eust donne de bons avis. "]
[563] {524}[See Aubrey's account (_Miscellanies upon Various Subjects_,
by John Aubrey, F. R. S. , 1857, p. 81) of the apparition which disappeared
"with a curious perfume, and _most melodious twang_;" or see Scott's
_Antiquary, The Novels, etc_. , 1851, i. 375. ]
[564]
["When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me,
----I, too, pressed forward to enter--
But the weight of the body withheld me. --I stooped to the fountain.
* * * * *
And my feet methought sunk, and I fell precipitate. Starting,
Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twilight before me,
Dark and distinct; and instead of the rapturous sound of hosannahs,
Heard the bell from the tower, Toll! Toll! through the
silence of evening. "
_Vision of Judgement_, xii. ]
[565] {525}A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then
floats, as most people know. [Byron may, possibly, have heard of the
"Floating Island" on Derwentwater. ]
[ht] _In his own little nook_----. --[MS. ]
[566]
["Verily, you brache!
The devil turned precisian. "
Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, act i. sc. 1]
[hu] ----_the light is now withdrawn_. --[MS. ]
[567] ["Mem. This poem was begun on May 7, 1821, but left off the same
day--resumed about the 20th of September of the same year, and concluded
as dated. "]
POEMS 1816-1823.
POEMS 1816-1823
A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD[568] ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA. [569]
_Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport_[570]
1.
The Moorish King rides up and down.
Through Granada's royal town:
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama! [hv][571]
2.
Letters to the Monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
3.
He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!
4.
When the Alhambra walls he gained,
On the moment he ordained
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.
Woe is me, Alhama!
5.
And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain.
Woe is me, Alhama!
6.
Then the Moors, by this aware,
That bloody Mars recalled them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
7.
Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh King?
What may mean this gathering? "
Woe is me, Alhama!
8.
"Friends! ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow--
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtained Alhama's hold. "
Woe is me, Alhama!
9.
Out then spake old Alfaqui,[572]
With his beard so white to see,
"Good King! thou art justly served,
Good King! this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Alhama!
10.
"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee,
Of Cordova the Chivalry.
Woe is me, Alhama!
11.
"And for this, oh King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement;
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
connection with Electric Telegraphy in 1816_, by J. Sime, 1893. But the
"Telegraph" to which Byron refers was, probably, the semaphore (from
London to Portsmouth), which, according to [Sir] John Barrow, the
Secretary of the Admiralty, rendered "telegraphs of any kind now wholly
unnecessary" (_vide ibid. _, p. 10). ]
[528] {506}[Compare, for similarity of sound--
"It plunged and tacked and veered. "
_Ancient Mariner_, pt. iii. line 156. ]
[ha]
----_No land was ever overflowed_
_By locusts as the Heaven appeared by these_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hb] _And many-languaged cries were like wild geese_. --[Erased. ]
[529] [Compare--
"Wherefore with thee
Came not all Hell broke loose? "
_Paradise Lost_, iv. 917, 918. ]
[hc] _Though the first Hackney will_----. --[MS. ]
[hd] {507}_Ready to swear the cause of all their pain_. --[Erased. ]
[530] [In the game of ombre the ace of spades, _spadille_, ranks as the
best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best
trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's _Rape of the Lock_,
in. 47-64. )]
[531] {508}["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb? ' cried the multifaced Demon in
anger. "
_Vision of Judgement_, v. ]
[532]
["Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day. "
_Ibid. _, v.
In Hogarth's caricature (the original pen-and-ink sketch is in the
"Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to _Catalogue_, 1886)
Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint. " The costume--long
coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings--is
not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a
leer and a sneer. Walpole (_Letters_, 1858, vii. 274) describes another
portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking--no,
squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil
acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton. "]
[533] {509}[For the "Coan" skirts of the First Empire, see the fashion
plates and Gillray's and Rowlandson's caricatures _passim_. ]
[he] _It shall be me they'll find the trustiest patriot_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hf] _Said Wilkes I've done as much before_. --[MS. erased. ]
[534] {510}[On his third return to Parliament for Middlesex, October 8,
1774, Wilkes took his seat (December 2) without opposition. In the
following February, and on subsequent occasions, he endeavoured to
induce the House to rescind the resolutions passed January 19, 1764,
under which he had been expelled from Parliament, and named as
blasphemous, obscene, etc. Finally, May, 1782, he obtained a substantial
majority on a division, and the obnoxious resolutions were ordered to be
expunged from the journals of the House. ]
[535] [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton,
a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in
the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;"
but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become
surety for bail. He feared that such a step might "come under the
denomination of an insult on the Crown. " A writ of _Habeas Corpus_ (see
line 8) was applied for by Lord Temple and others, and, May 6, Wilkes
was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, on the ground of privilege.
Three years later (November 1, 1766), on his return from Italy, Wilkes
sought to obtain Grafton's protection and interest; but the duke, though
he consulted Chatham, and laid Wilkes's letter before the King, decided
to "take no notice" of this second appeal. In his _Autobiography_
Grafton is careful to define "the extent of his knowledge" of Mr.
Wilkes, and to explain that he was not "one of his intimates"--a
_caveat_ which warrants the statement of Junius that "as for Mr. Wilkes,
it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should
have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former
friendship with him. Your gracious Master understands your character;
and makes you a persecutor because you have been a friend" ("Letter
(xii. ) to the Duke of Grafton," May 30, 1769). --_Memoirs of Augustus
Henry, Third Duke of Grafton_, by Sir W. Anson, Bart. , D. C. L. , 1898, pp.
190-197. ]
[536] {511}[In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, and in the following
spring it fell to his lot to present to the King a remonstrance from the
Livery against the continuance of the war with America. Walpole (April
17, 1775, Letters, 1803, vi. 257) says that "he used his triumph with
moderation--in modern language with good breeding. " The King is said to
have been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In his old age (1790) he
voted against the Whigs. A pasquinade, written by Sheridan, Tickell, and
Lord John Townshend, anticipated the devil's insinuations--
"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,
Thou greatest of bilks,
How changed are the notes you now sing!
Your famed 'Forty-five'
Is prerogative,
And your blasphemy 'God save the King'!
Johnny Wilkes,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King '! "
_Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox_, by W. F. Rae, 1874, pp. 132, 133. ]
[hg] _Where Beelzebub upon duty_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[537] ["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack upon the King, two Acts were
introduced [the "Treason" and "Sedition Bills," November 6, November 10,
1795], called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, for better securing the
King's person "(_Diary of H. C. Robinson_, 1869, i. 32). "'The first of
these bills [_The Plot Discovered, etc. _, by S. T. Coleridge, November
28, 1795, _Essays on his own Times_, 1850, i. 56] is an attempt to
assassinate the liberty of the press; the second to smother the liberty
of speech. " The "Devil" feared that Wilkes had been "gagged" for good
and all.
[538] {512}
["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,
Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turned his face from the Monarch,
Iron-bound as it was . . . so insupportably dreadful
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured. "
_Vision of Judgement_, v. i]
[hh] _Or in the human cholic_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[hi] _Which looked as 'twere a phantom even on earth_. --[MS. erased. ]
[hj] _Now it seemed little, now a little bigger_. --[MS. erased. ]
[539] {513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than
fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord
George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord
Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius,
Byron wrote, in his _Journal_ of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what
to think. Why should Junius be yet dead? . . . . the man must be alive, and
will never die without the disclosure" (_Letters_, 1893, ii. 334); but
an article (by Brougham) in the _Edinburgh Review_, vol. xxix. p. 94, on
_The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character
established_ (see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost
persuaded him that "Francis is Junius. " (For a _resume_ of the arguments
in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie
Stephen's article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_, art. "Francis. " See,
too, _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, by W. E. H. Lecky,
1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against
this theory, see _Athenaeum_, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is
still being debated. See _The Francis Letters_, with a note on the
Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901. )]
[hk] _A doctor, a man-midwife_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[hl] {514}_Till curiosity became a task_. --[MS. erased. ]
[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the
Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio
Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua. Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the
instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Marechal Catinat, May 2, 1679,
and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September
18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve
the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice
in the _Quart. Rev_. , June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take
the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article
_L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir_, in the _Revue Historique_, by M.
Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom. 56, pp. 253-303. )]
[541] [See _The Rivals_, act iv. sc. II]
[hm] _It is that he_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[542] {515}[The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial morass, covered
with dense forests of mangrove. "Along the whole coast . . . there opens
into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have
scarcely been able to number. "]
[543] [The title-page runs thus: "_Letters of Junius, Stat Nominis
Umbra_. " _That_, and nothing more! On the title-page of his copy, across
the motto, S. T. Coleridge wrote this sentence, "As he never dropped the
mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of the
assassin. "--_Miscellanies_, etc. , by S. T. Coleridge, ed. T. Asle, 1885,
p. 341. ]
[hn]
_My charge is upon record and will last_
_Longer than will his lamentation_. --[MS. erased. ]
[544] {516}[John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), as an opponent of the American
War, and as a promoter of the Corresponding Society, etc. ; and Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790), as the champion of American Independence, would
have been cited as witnesses against George III. ]
[545] [In the _Diable Boiteux_ (1707) of Le Sage, Don Cleofas, clinging
to the cloak of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the summit of
San Salvador. Compare--
"Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift
Be realiz'd at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift,
To place it on St. Mary's spire. "
_Granta, a Medley_, stanza 1. , _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 56, note 2. ]
[546] ["But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust,
was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado. "--_Speech of
William Smith, M. P. , in the House of Commons_, March 14, 1817. (See,
too, for the use of the word "renegado," _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii.
488, note i. )]
[547] [For the "weight" of Southey's quartos, compare Byron's note (1)
to _Hints from Horace_, line 657, and a variant of lines 753-756.
"Thus
let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.
435, 443). ]
[ho] {517}_And drawing nigh I caught him at a libel_. --[MS. erased. ]
[548] [Compare--
"But for the children of the 'Mighty Mother's,'
The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,
I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'
Smug coterie, and literary lady. "
_Beppo_, stanza lxxvi. lines 5-8, _vide ante_, p. 183. ]
[hp]
_And scrawls as though he were head clerk to the "Fates,"_
_And this I think is quite enough for one_. --[Erased. ]
[549] {518}[Compare--
"One leaf from Southey's laurels may explode
All his combustibles,
'An ass, by God! '"
_A Satire on Satirists, etc. _, by W. S. Landor, 1836, p. 22. ]
[550] ["There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and
Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers. "--Hazlitt's _My
First Acquaintance with Poets_; _The Liberal_, 1823, ii. 23, 46. ]
[551] [Compare the attitude of Minos to the "poet" in Fielding's
_Journey from This World to the Next_: "The poet answered, he believed
if Minos had read his works he would set a higher value on them. [The
poet had begged for admittance to Elysium on the score of his 'dramatic
works. ' Minos dismissed the plea, but relented on being informed that he
had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend. ] He was
then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed him forward, and turning his
back to him, applied himself to the next passengers. "--_Novelist's
Magazine_, 1783, vol. xii. cap. vii. p. 17. ]
[552]
[" . . . Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae. "
Horace, _Ars Poetica_, lines 372, 373. ]
[553] {519}[For the King's habit of duplicating his phrases, compare--
"Whitbread, is't true? I hear, I hear
You're of an ancient family renowned.
What? what? I'm told that you're a limb
Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym:
What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?
Son of a Roundhead are you? hae? hae? hae?
* * * * *
Thirtieth of January don't you _feed_?
Yes, yes, you eat Calf's head, you eat Calf's head. "
_Instructions to a Celebrated Laureat_, Peter Pindar's
_Works_, 1812, i. 493. ]
[554] [For Henry James Pye (1745-1813), see _English Bards, etc. _, line
102, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 305, note 1. ]
[hq] {520} ----_an ill-looking knave_. --[MS. erased. ]
[555] ["Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey--the
best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head
and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly
a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that,
and--_there_ is his eulogy. "--Letter to Moore, September 27, 1813,
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 266.
"I have not seen the _Liberal_," wrote Southey to Wynn, October 26,
1822, "but a Leeds paper has been sent me . . . including among its
extracts the description and behaviour of a certain 'varlet. ' He has not
offended me in the way that the pious painter exasperated the Devil"
(i. e. by painting him "more ugly than ever:" see Southey's Ballad of the
_Pious Painter_, _Works_, 1838, vi. 64). ]
[hr] {521}_He therefore was content to cite a few_. --[MS. erased. ]
[556] [Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" was published in the _Annual
Anthology_ of 1800, pp. 34-37. It is quoted at length, as a republican
and seditious poem, in the _Preface_ to an edition of _Wat Tyler_,
published by W. Hone in 1817; and it is also included in an "Appendix"
entitled _The Stripling Bard, or the Apostate Laureate_, affixed to
another edition issued in the same year by John Fairburn. The purport
and _motif_ of these excellent rhymes is non-patriotic if not
Jacobinical, but, for some reason, the poem has been considered
improving for the young, and is included in many "Poetry Books" for
schools. _The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo_ was published in 1816, not
long before the resuscitation of _Wat Tyler_. ]
[557] [_Vide ante_, p. 482. ]
[558] ["He has written _Wat Tyler_, and taken the office of poet
laureate--he has, in the _Life of Henry Kirke White_ (see Byron's note
_infra_), denominated reviewing 'the ungentle craft,' and has become a
reviewer--he was one of the projectors of a scheme called
'pantisocracy,' for having all things, including women, in common
(_query_ common women? ). "--_Some Observations upon an Article in
Blackwood's Magazine_ (No. xxix. , August, 1819), _Letters_, 1900
[Appendix IX. ], iv. 483. The invention or, possibly, disinterment of
this calumny was no doubt a counterblast on Byron's part to the supposed
charge of a "league of incest" (at Diodati, in 1816), which he
maintained had been disseminated by Coleridge on the authority of
Southey (_vide ante_, p. 475). It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that
before Pantisocracy was imagined or devised, one of the future
pantisocrats, Robert Lovell, was married to Mary Fricker; that Robert
Southey was engaged to be married to her sister Edith; and that, as a
result of the birth and evolution of the scheme, Coleridge became
engaged to be married to a third sister, Sarah, hitherto loverless, in
order that "every Jack should have his Jill," and the world begin anew
in a second Eden across the seas. All things were to be held in common,
in order that each man might hold his wife in particular. ]
[559] {522}_Remains of Henry Kirke White_ [1808, i. 23]
[560] [Southey's _Life of Wesley, and Rise and Progress of Methodism_,
in two volumes octavo, was published in 1820. In a "Memento" written in
a blank leaf of the first volume, Coleridge expressed his desire that
his copy should be given to Southey as a bequest. "One or other volume,"
he writes, "was more often in my hands than any other in my ragged
book-regiment . . . How many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this
Life of Wesley! "--Third ed. 1846, i. xv. ]
[561] [In his reply to the Preface to Southey's _Vision of Judgement_,
Byron attacked the Laureate as "this arrogant scribbler of all works. "]
[hs] _Is not unlike it, and is_----. --[MS. ]
[562] {523}King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that
"had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have
spared the Maker some absurdities. [Alphonso X. , King of Castile
(1221-1284), surnamed the Wise and the Astronomer, "gave no small
encouragement to the Jewish rabbis. " Under his patronage Judah de Toledo
translated the works of Avicenna, and improved them by a new division of
the stars. Moreover, "he sent for about 50 learned men from Gascony,
Paris, and other places, to translate the tables of Ptolemy, and to
compile a more correct set of them (i. e. the famous _Tabulae Alphonsinae_)
. . . The king himself presided over the assembly. "--_Mod. Univ. Hist. _,
xiii. 304, 305, note(U).
Alfonso has left behind him the reputation of a Castilian
Hamlet--"infinite in faculty," but "unpregnant of his cause. " "He was
more fit," says Mariana (_Hist. _, lib. xiii. c. 20), "for letters than
for the government of his subjects; he studied the heavens and watched
the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom. " Nevertheless his
works do follow him. "He is to be remembered for his poetry
(_'Cantigas'_, chants in honour of the Virgin, and _'Tesoro'_ a treatise
on the philosopher's stone), for his astronomical tables, which all the
progress of science have not deprived of their value, and for his great
work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both
hemispheres. "--_Hist. of Spanish Literature_, by G. Ticknor, 1888, i. 7.
Byron got the quip about Alfonso and "the absurdities of creation" from
Bayle (_Dict_. , 1735, art. "Castile"), who devotes a long note (H) to a
somewhat mischievous apology for the king's apparent profanity. Bayle's
immediate authority is Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his _Entretiens sur
la Pluralite des Mondes_, 1686, p. 38, "L'embaras de tous ces cercles
estoit si grand, que dans un temps ou l'on ne connoissoit encore rien de
meilleur, un roy d'Aragon (_sic_) grand mathematicien mais apparemment
peu devot, disoit que si Dieu l'eust appelle a son conseil quand il fit
le Monde, il luy eust donne de bons avis. "]
[563] {524}[See Aubrey's account (_Miscellanies upon Various Subjects_,
by John Aubrey, F. R. S. , 1857, p. 81) of the apparition which disappeared
"with a curious perfume, and _most melodious twang_;" or see Scott's
_Antiquary, The Novels, etc_. , 1851, i. 375. ]
[564]
["When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me,
----I, too, pressed forward to enter--
But the weight of the body withheld me. --I stooped to the fountain.
* * * * *
And my feet methought sunk, and I fell precipitate. Starting,
Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twilight before me,
Dark and distinct; and instead of the rapturous sound of hosannahs,
Heard the bell from the tower, Toll! Toll! through the
silence of evening. "
_Vision of Judgement_, xii. ]
[565] {525}A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then
floats, as most people know. [Byron may, possibly, have heard of the
"Floating Island" on Derwentwater. ]
[ht] _In his own little nook_----. --[MS. ]
[566]
["Verily, you brache!
The devil turned precisian. "
Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, act i. sc. 1]
[hu] ----_the light is now withdrawn_. --[MS. ]
[567] ["Mem. This poem was begun on May 7, 1821, but left off the same
day--resumed about the 20th of September of the same year, and concluded
as dated. "]
POEMS 1816-1823.
POEMS 1816-1823
A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD[568] ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA. [569]
_Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport_[570]
1.
The Moorish King rides up and down.
Through Granada's royal town:
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama! [hv][571]
2.
Letters to the Monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
3.
He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!
4.
When the Alhambra walls he gained,
On the moment he ordained
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.
Woe is me, Alhama!
5.
And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain.
Woe is me, Alhama!
6.
Then the Moors, by this aware,
That bloody Mars recalled them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
7.
Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh King?
What may mean this gathering? "
Woe is me, Alhama!
8.
"Friends! ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow--
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtained Alhama's hold. "
Woe is me, Alhama!
9.
Out then spake old Alfaqui,[572]
With his beard so white to see,
"Good King! thou art justly served,
Good King! this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Alhama!
10.
"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee,
Of Cordova the Chivalry.
Woe is me, Alhama!
11.
"And for this, oh King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement;
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
